[ he's surprised that he brought it up. in general, they have both been avoiding any kind of difficult conversation that may shake up their current trajectory. while the timeline shenanigans have been alluded to, they don't outright discuss it. they don't talk about how the long term effects of elysium's illness will make a lot of their plans difficult, unless they eventually open up communications with rhodes again.

speaking of rhodes, just leaving them at all. while thorns knows elysium would choose him over that company, the choice still couldn't have been an easy one; while thorns was attached to them, elysium was much more so. he could barely even look at mantra without it being obvious that he felt guilt about the choices he was making when it came to her specifically. ]

You need to tell me when it starts to get bad, Elysium. Getting blindsided by it will hurt a lot worse than being aware.

[ one of the (many) perks of the corazonix is that thorns can monitor for health with it, but to get a properly detailed reading would require elysium's participation, so there's only so much he can do sneakily there. ]